L.A. @ Houston - Game 4 - 05/10

Oh man... We all thought the Rockets were toast without Yao Ming.. well... we were wrong.

Who else watched this? I watched the entire game (just finished). Houston was up by around 30 points at one point in the game. They ended up winning 99 to 87 to tie the series at 2-2.

I think this game gave the Rockets a change to really step out of their reliance on Yao Ming and fill his shoes. It turned out that they were able to do it and then some. That and the fact that the Laker's didn't really have a great game, but that's gotta be partially because they expected this to be an easy win. I think they went into the game expecting Yao's absence to be an automatic win for them.

I thought the Rockets didn't stand a chance as well without Yao Ming, but they still have great players. Brooks really stepped it up and finished with 34 points. Artest and Battier played amazing on the defensive side of the ball. But one of the biggest things that hurt the Lakers is Kobe Bryant was almost invisable in the fourth quarter.

I was starting to suspect that Phil Jackson pulled Kobe out of the 4th for the most part so he could start resting up for the next game. I think they realized that they had lost this one and didn't want to risk injuring him that late in the game.